Regina Taylor had the idea of adapting the book for the stage, but translating a collection of interviews into a night of theater poses some difficulties (n.b. the 1978 Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel's "Working").
I had the experience of translating interviews between Vytautas Landsbergis and Bill Keller of The New York Times, for example.
Parts of interviews were translated into English, to facilitate the interpretive process and to present study findings.
The key themes were then translated into statements by using the results of interviews and focus groups.
Also, in-depth interviews are time consuming to do and, especially, to transcribe, translate and code and, given the large number of interviews, this frequently led to backlogs.
The exhaustive discussion of the questions was supplemented by translating the interview guide of the mothers into the local language (Rufumbira), which is understood by the respondents.
The researchers at each site recorded, transcribed and translated the interviews, discussing the translation of complex terms or phrases with facility staff members and the Principal Investigators (PIs) at each site, who reviewed the transcripts to check the accuracy of translations.
An important question is when in the process of analysis to translate the interviews.
Moreover, certain nuances of respondents' reports may have been overlooked when translating interviews into English.
A native English speaker with no knowledge of the topic under the investigation, then, translated the interviews back to Persian.
